The move is mostly complete, just a handful of links to update.
I chose to not go with wordpress.com for a simple reason: There was no simple way to move all my pictures. So, I moved it to here instead, since I had to move all the images anyways (in reality, its on the same physical machine as the previous site). Also, its easier to move at a later date now 🙂
-pyra
Wow, I need to make more real updates. Hopefully, I’ll have time this weekend. Boo life, its been way too busy lately.
Posted in Administrative, FFXI, Random Thoughts
Its late, I’m exhausted, but I wanted to post this.
Woot! More pics coming soon, I’ve got to get everything organized, been a couple weeks of a picture backlog to sort through.
-pyra
Posted in Caitsith, EternalMemories, FFXI, Limbus
Tagged Caitsith, EternalMemories, FFXI, Homam, Limbus, Proto-Omega
It is very bitter sweet that I have decided to no longer update blogs.ai-ls.com/pyra . This will be discontinued shortly and moved to a new site which I have not yet found, possibly wordpress.com .
After an event last night, I wish to distance myself as much as possible from all that once was the American Idol linkshell, including turning over the domain to someone else. If no one takes it over, it will be allowed to expire when the registration runs out in January 2009.
Edit: No, not this one, this is the new version. The one that was discontinued was the original site.
Posted in Administrative, AmericanIdol
Every so often, I get asked why I chose WordPress (and in this case, WordPress MU) for blogs.ai-ls.com .
There are other options out there.
The why is easy. I was trying to integrate the blogs into the already existing forums.
There were basically 2 choices, WordPress, and The Blog Mog. If you’ve used the FF Wiki, you know what the blog mod is like. Eventually, I just decided that the PHP Nuke was getting too overloaded and started from scratch. I like the results.
It is what it is, but it lacks a lot of features that are awesome — such as having your own url (in the case of this site, it would be something like www.ai-ls.com/modules/forums/blogs.php?blog=1234). I guess you could book mark it, but it loses some of the appeal of a simple URL, such as blogs.ai-ls.com/pyra .
Well, this past week there has been a small battle in the ongoing fight of WordPress vs. Movable Type.
It all started with this post in the MT blog — http://www.movabletype.com/blog/2008/03/a-wordpress-25-upgrade-guide.html , which was quickly followed up in one of their dev’s blogs http://sippey.typepad.com/filtered/2008/03/were-here-to-co.html , which was followed up in ma.tt (one of the primary authors of WordPress) http://ma.tt/2008/03/wordpress-is-open-source/ . All links have been removed b/c I don’t feel like getting drawn into this mess.
However, in the interest of fairness, I decided to test out Movable Type. I set up mt.blogs.ai-ls.com/pyra as a temporary MT test site. I will make posts to both blogs to really try to understand how MT works.
Installation was not hard. There were a handful of extra steps beyond what WordPress MU/WordPress require, but nothing more than expected. It was painless, with the only troubles being a typo I made with the MySQL DB name.
Then came some challenges.
First off, I chose as my name “Pyra’s Testing Place”, because this is “Pyra’s Party Place”. I wanted the URL to be the same, so I changed it to just /pyra. However, MT uses generated HTML for everything, instead of dynamic PHP (like WP), and it installed everything to /pyras_testing_place . I’m also not used to having to hit publish and waiting more than about 10 seconds for the new post to show up.
But its a different program, I shouldn’t expect Mac OS X to work exactly like Windows just because all I’ve used is Windows.
If you visit the sites listed above, you will see both sides telling you why their product is better.
As far as I can tell, they are basically the same. MT gives you more options, WP makes some things easier. Personally, from an admin point of view, giving the users less options is a good thing. I really don’t want 99% of the visitors choosing their own upload path, then asking me why nothing works. Maiev I know would know what he’s doing, but many others? Probably not.
All of the advantages of MT (OpenID, can handle huge load, etc) don’t really apply. No one uses OpenID (aside from LiveJournal), and with akismet + open comments, anyone who wants to can just post with the now common format of “CharacterName of Server” or “CharacterName (Server)”. As to huge loads? This site gets maybe 1000 hits per day, so honestly, who cares. Oh noes, my pages loaded in .89 seconds instead of .72 seconds. It doesn’t matter. MT makes extensive use of the file system, while WP uses .htaccess and ModRewrite. MT includes a handful of items as standard that WP requires a plugin for (for example, the stats, and any MT install can be turned into a multi-user install).
But MT does some dumb things too, like not creating a blog at the install root by default, even on a multi-user install.
Since both products are basically even, and I’m already running on WordPress MU, I see no reason to change. I’m sure if I were running MT I would say the same thing.
For the time being, the MT site will remain up. I can’t figure out how to enable user-created accounts, so send me a message if you want to test it out.
This is my stance. If anyone really wants their own MT install, it can be arranged. As can <charactername>.ai-ls.com if you really want. Otherwise, as far as I’m concerned, WPMU is how this blog site will stay. For what this site is, I feel it is the better choice.
-pyra
Edit: Bleh, looks like MT doesn’t work with Windows Live Writer, which is what I use for all of my posts anymore. That… just… sucks.
Edit 2: Jim Ramsey (lead designer for Movable Type) posted a link in my comments on how to make the Live Writer work w/ MT. I take back edit 1, it does work.
And I am back!
Its been too long without a real update, so here is a good one.
About 2 weeks ago, KillerInstinct fought Dynamis Lord again. This time for some good drops.
Yeah, full drops from a DL, a very rare occurrence.
But the most important part is this–
Yeah, 548, one of my highest weapon skills on DL to date.
But the best part is this.
That DK was the kill shot. For full drops.
Which of course has one obvious conclusion.
Anytime you want drops, just bring more Monks.
-pyra
Posted in Dynamis, FFXI, KillerInstinct
Tagged Dynamis, Dynamis Lord, FFXI, KillerInstinct
Since I’ve had some downtime recently, I decided to get my merrit plan into order.
And I made a google spreadsheet, see here.
Its still a work in progress, but I wanted to share.
I cannot take credit for the idea, I found it via someone who linked to me. See Cyberstorm of Titan. I basically copied his general format, but I don’t have nearly the merrits he has. Actually, if I did, I wouldn’t need to merrit anymore.
Oh well. I don’t actually ever expect to get this list completed. I think I’d rather level Paladin or a tank job (boooo tanking) over getting the 2.7 million exp required to finish out this plan.
Real update sometime this week. Its been a while, I was in Boston all last week for a training class, and I have this week to work on getting my project finished — and I really do need to finish it, but its kicking my butt. Java sucks. Why, oh why, would you make a function return an object when its so clearly a String. Every other statement requires typecasting, and coming from C/C++, this looks like its just asking for trouble. And if you have an int, why the hell can’t JspWriter.write() just spit it out right instead of having to do write(“”+myInt). I swear, even obfuscated perl makes more sense sometimes.
-pyra
Posted in Administrative, FFXI, Random Thoughts
I’ve been doing some testing with how much effort is required to get your next rank.
What is known:
What is unknown:
What is believed:
As can be seen, not much is known about the specific math required to achieve the various ranks.
My basis for known #4 – I used two accounts, both hit Golden Star on the same day, and I recorded the amount of exp and AN received from start to promotion.
The first account was promoted at 9600 exp and 8900 Allied Notes. The second was not promoted at 8880 exp and 10,500 Allied Noted, but was promoted at 9040 exp and 11,120 Allied Notes (all numbers rounded since I’m working from memory right now). Based on this information, I believe that the threshold is for Golden Star to Copper Emblem is 9000 exp (possibly 8900), and if there is an Allied Notes requirement, it is either lower than, or the same as the Experience Points requirement. It also appears as though extra Allied Notes will not offset Experience Points shortcomings, meaning you will have to join Campaign Battles if you ever hope to get promoted.
After revisiting my numbers I noticed that my original thought about 9000 exp to rank up may not be correct. It is possible that it is 8900, and since I had 8900 AN and over 9000 exp, I have not disproved it yet. This will require furthur testing at all levels to begin to make a table of what is required to rank up. What I believe is proven is that there is an experience points requirement to get your promotion, and it is NOT only based on Allied Notes, and may not be based on Allied Notes at all.
If there is no Allied Notes requirement, the Notes may be completly useless at this time.
Anyone else have thoughts?
So Miz was out for the evening, but still wanted to do limbo. The dilemma. So, he asked me to play his character for him since I’m somewhat familiar with how to Monk (and I specifically asked not to play Paladin, since, well, my Paladin is lvl 1 for a good reason).
The theme of this post is Potential.
Yes, I found Potential.
First thing I had to do was get some macros. I copied over the ones I use for Pyra, especially since we use a lot of the same gear, at least for any slots I’d want to swap.
Ok, so I, and everyone else, got a kick out of using Pyra’s TP macro for Miz.
Rawr! Look at me, I’m Miz, I make stuff die!
Whoa… as in Keanu Reeves from the Matrix, Whoa….
Having been on the butt of one too many ninja’s getting charmed (including this particular ninja getting charmed with his stun katanas on, that sucked), I took a little revenge.
But, I decided it would probably be a bad idea to solo the charmed tank, and went back to the monster.
After the fight, Miz was mine for a little bit.
After the great lesson I learned from Mischa, Bard or Summoner is the choice for running around.
Oh look, skill up even.
Rawr!
-pyra
Posted in AnimeFusion, Caitsith, FFXI, Limbus
Tagged Caitsith, FFXI, Limbus, Messing with Miz
This week, I saw the NM Roc for the first time. Not only did I see it, but I got the title too.
Yes, I was there for TH-Whoredom, but they pulled it to the bottom of the cliff so I could hit it once.
While hoping for a D. Ignot to sell, we got a dryad staff instead. As the only White Mage present, free lot for me!
So its a free 50 MP. Not too bad for a short run.
But you might say, a short run from where.
Well, I had just outposted to the Merphy Mountains to finish up mission 6-2. Earlier in the day, I was a bit bored and decided to duo the fight with myself.
The fight is quite easy for a MNK/NIN and a WHM/BLM. Although it did go bad after the first Yag, the final 3 went very smooth, especially since I managed to get the SAM and WHM to use their 2 hour abilities before I died.
After my trip to Castle-O, I went to see the Star Sibyl and now my signet lasts 1 hour longer than before. Yay!
Oh, and the 40K is nice too. Payed for that night’s Limbus run.
I also finished up my 4th Star in Campaign. Hopefully I’ll be un-lazy and get the first metal this weekend.
Other than that, I’ve only done a Dynamis – Xarcabard. Thief hands finally fell after a 5 month break.
1 more person off the list before I will get mine.
Since we always do a Dynamis Lord when we go to Xarcabard, and I always go to Xarcabard as Monk, I got to try a decent Chi blast on him. I was in mostly melee gear as a MNK/DRK, and I only got 10 boosts, and its Dynamis Lord, so this isn’t horrible.
Part of this came from my newly acquired Temple Crown +1, and a borrowed Osode.
Speaking of a borrowed Osode, here is what I look like in 4/5 of the Sky Set.
Soon I’ll have one of my own. Hands are kind of meh for monk, I prefer the Melee Gloves, or the +1 if I can get them. According to Genome, they help with counter rate, aside from the obvious evasion granted by 15 extra AGI. But I would put myself at the bottom of the list for Seiryu’s Kote, Rangers, Ninjas, and even Samurai deserve them before a Monk would.
-pyra
Posted in AnimeFusion, Dynamis, FFXI, KillerInstinct, Missions
Tagged Dynamis, FFXI, Missions, Notorious Monsters
Drama (Found It!)
Some other names I found amusing.
Shedontusejelly. I don’t get it either.
Kardis. This is more of an inside joke. I have a friend with a mule on Diabolos named Kardis. I was instructed to smite this one.
Just a quick update for now. Another one shortly.
-pyra